TENKASI: A 24-year-old youth was hacked to death by a group of people when he and his friends were allegedly attempting to rustle goats from a farm in Nachiyarpuram here in the wee hours of Wednesday.
The deceased has been identified as Muthupandi, a resident of Nettur. Ayyanar, a resident of Kayatharu of Thoothukudi district, and Pattan of Kidarakulam village ranched their goats at one Pandithurai's farm. When the duo was sleeping near the herd, the deceased, along with five friends, including Parthiban, reached the farm on two motorcycles and attempted to rustle a few goats, sources claimed. Upon hearing the bleat of the goats, Ayyanar and Pattan woke up. Meanwhile, pattan phoned his sons Kaliraj and Uchimahali. Even as Ayyanar was attempting to prevent Muthupandi and his friends from "stealing the goats", Pattan's sons reached the farm.
The groups clashed and Muthupandi was allegedly hacked to death. One of the arms of Muthupandi's friend Parthiban was cut off. Pattan and his sons were severely injured. Alerted, the Veerakeralampudur police led by Inspector Mareeswari and Sub-Inspectors Balaji and Murugan rushed to the spot and sent the injured to hospitals and recovered the body of Muthupandi which was later sent to Government Tenkasi Headquarters Hospital for postmortem examination. Later, Superintendent of Police Suguna Singh conducted an inquiry in Nachiyarpuram.
Since both parties belong to two different communities, police personnel are deployed to Nachiyarpuram and surrounding villages to prevent any untoward incident.